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Translating knowledge on genetics and physiology of wheat abiotic stress to improve breeding efficiency

Global climate change toward greater aridity and the ever-increased population pose a challenge to enhance wheat productivity.  Developing drought-tolerant wheat cultivars with enhancing yields is essential to assure food security.  In the Middle East region, wheat is the most important grain crop.  Wild emmer wheat (Triticum turgidum ssp. dicoccoides), the progenitor of all domesticated wheats, harbor a wide genetic diversity for agronomically important traits including drought resistance. The high genetic similarity with durum wheat enables fast and easy transfer of gene to improve the domesticated forms. 

      The WheatME project aims to improve drought and heat tolerance in durum wheat, by exploiting the available genetic diversity in the wild relatives. A large mapping population derived from a cross between elite durum wheat cultivar and highly drought tolerant wild emmer accession was developed. We will characterize this population in the target region (Israel, and Jordan) for yield and morpho-physiological traits contributing to heat and drought tolerance. Using the high-density genetic map already available, we will map the genomic region associated with improved productivity under water deficit. This information will be used for the introgression of genomic regions containing drought resistance genes/QTL from the wild into high yielding elite Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian recipient's cultivars for the establishment of improved cultivars with high yield under heat and drought conditions.

 

The WheatME core-collection  

 

The Svevo X Zavitan RIL population

The WheatME project is supported by the USAID

MIDDLE EAST REGIONAL COOPERATION (MERC) Program

WheatME news

  • WheatME virtual workshop was  held on 26-July, 2020

  • We presented the WheatME project during MERC meeting in Jordan. July 2019

  • The WheatME training course will be held in Rehovot, April 2019.  Read More

  • New paper on the WheatME core-collection published in Agronomy. Read more

  • Harel presented results for the WheatME project in "From Seed to Pasta III" conference, Bologna, Italy, September 2018

  • Congratulation to Siwar who successfully submitted his master thesis.    

  • BERC team visit in the field experiments in Rehovot, May 2018

  • New paper on wheat seminal roots architecture under drought published in Plant Cell & Environment.  Read more

  • THe WheatME kickoff Meeting held in NCARE, Jordan. August 2017.

  • The Zavitan genome was published in Science. Read more 

  • Harel Bacher has joined the Peleg lab as a Ph.D. candidate working on the genetic mapping of drought tolerance in wheat. October 2016.

  • The Svevo x Zavitan genetic map was published in Molecular Breeding.  Read more

  • The Field experiment was sown in Til, Nablus, Palestine. December 2015

  • The field experiment was sown under rain-out-shelter in Rehovot, Israel.  December 2015

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